Images of the Grant Park Historic
District including characteristic houses, Grant Park and the
Cyclorama BuildingNational Register photographs by Yen Tang and Jody Cook

The Grant Park Historic District encompasses one of Atlanta's oldest
neighborhoods. The district includes Grant Park, a 131-acre green
space and recreational area, and the residential neighborhoods surrounding
it. The majority of the buildings are residential but the district
also includes school buildings, churches, neighborhood commercial
clusters and recreational buildings. Rambling Victorian era mansions
and small cottages, early 20th-century bungalows and many brick paved
sidewalks characterize the Grant Park neighborhood. A majority of
the buildings were built from the late 19th to the early 20th century.
Large two-story mansions face the park, more modest two-story, modified
Queen Anne, frame dwellings were constructed on surrounding streets,
while one-story Victorian era cottages and Craftsman bungalows predominate
in the streets to the east of the park. Grant Park's distinctive landscape
includes rolling hills and scenic vistas. The neighborhood's grid
street pattern and narrow rectangular lots which developed during
the 1890s and early 1900s are representative of Atlanta residential
plans of this era. The streets are lined with mature trees and there
is an extensive sidewalk system, portions of which retain the original
brick. Due to the topography, retaining walls are an important landscape
feature.

The district also includes remnants of the home of its earliest
settler, Colonel Lemuel P. Grant. Grant came to Atlanta in 1840
to participate in the construction of the Georgia Railroad. During
the Civil War, Grant was responsible for the design and construction
of a system of defensive fortifications for the city of Atlanta.
After the war, Grant's business career expanded, as did his land
holdings in the southeast quadrant of the city. In 1883, he carved
out about 100 acres of his vast estate for a public park which he
donated to the city--the first large city park in Atlanta. The city
expanded its boundaries to include the park acreage, and purchased
44 additional acres in 1890. In 1909, the Olmsted Brothers, sons
and successors to America's pioneer landscape architect and park
designer Frederick Law Olmsted, planned numerous improvements for
the park. Though considerable erosion has taken place, their influence
is still evident.

Historic postcard of the Cyclorama
Building Courtesy of Jody Cook

Historic postcard of the Cyclorama,
depicting the Battle of AtlantaCourtesy of Tommy Jones

A section of the main line of the Civil War earthen breastworks and
a battery known as Fort Walker are preserved in the southeast corner
of Grant Park. The Civil War history of the area is also represented
by the Cyclorama, a 360-degree detailed panorama painting of the Battle
of Atlanta in 1864. The canvas is heavy gauge cotton duck, 358 feet
in circumference and 42 feet in height. It weighs 9,000 pounds. Before
the painting was started, intensive study of the terrain of the battle
site in East Atlanta was done in the summer of 1885 by a group of
10 German artists working for the American Cyclorama Company in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin. The artists returned to Milwaukee in the latter part of
that year armed with notes, drawings, portraits of commanders on both
sides and official maps and papers from the War Department. It was
first displayed in Detroit in 1887 then toured major cities of the
country until it was purchased by a series of different owners, and
finally given to the city of Atlanta in 1897. The marble and granite
building that houses it today was constructed in 1921. Between 1934
and 1936, a Works Progress Administration project gave the painting
a three-dimensional foreground. Plaster figures, exploded shells,
fragments of rails and cross-ties, blasted stumps, simulated grass
and bushes, and Georgia clay were added to the base of the canvas.
Also within the Cyclorama Building is the Texas, an eight-wheel
American type steam locomotive built by Danforth, Cooke, and Company
of Patterson, New Jersey and placed in service on the Western and
Atlantic Railroad in October 1856. The Texas was made famous
as one of the three locomotives that pursued the General, a
stolen Confederate locomotive, on April 12, 1862 in what is now known
as the Great Locomotive Chase, also known as Andrews's Raid. James
J. Andrews, a civilian, and 19 Union soldiers seized the General
and three box cars at Big Shanty, now Kennesaw,
Georgia, and headed north toward Union lines. Their mission was to
destroy the railroad and cut off communications from Atlanta, a major
supply point for the Confederacy. The Texas entered the chase
north of Big Shanty, ran 51 miles in reverse in pursuit of the locomotive,
and towed the damaged General back to Ringgold, Georgia after
it was abandoned by Andrews and the Union soldiers. Andrews and seven
of his men were hanged by the Confederates as spies. The Texas
continued to serve the Confederacy throughout the Civil War, was later
renamed the Cincinnati, and from 1890 to 1904 operated on the
Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway. Left neglected for many
years, it was moved into the basement of the Cyclorama Building in
1927 and finally restored in 1936 and put on public display.

The Grant Park Historic District is bounded by Glenwood and
Atlanta aves. and Kelly and Eloise sts. Walking tours are available at 10:00 am on Sundays from March-November. Visit The Atlanta Preservation Centerfor more information. The Grant
Park Neighborhood Association also sponsors periodic tours
and events, and another organization, the Grant
Park Conservancy, is committed to the preservation,
restoration, beautification and maintenance of historic Grant
Park. The Cyclorama
Building, 800 Cherokee Ave., is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9:15am to 4:30pm
and there is a charge for admission; call 404-624-1071 for
more
information.